Reports of indoor drinking’s demise ‘may be exaggerated’

Even in the most weather-beaten reaches of Ireland, there is continuing demand for “pandemic pods”.

Interest in the structures, used to house patrons outside pubs and restaurants, remains strong even with indoor drinking and dining an option again. This apparent shift in Irish hospitality habits is bolstering a new micro-industry.

On the northwesterly stretch of the Wild Atlantic Way, in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, Gary O’Brien is enthusiastic about growing his infant enterprise making covered outdoor seating areas.

“Even with hospitality reopening indoors, there are a lot of people who don’t want to sit inside. I had a collapsed lung a few years ago, so I’m high risk. Even though I’m fully vaccinated, I still would sit outside because it’s a bit safer, and I like sitting outside,” he says.

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“You can see it in people coming into the bars too, especially the younger ones. Even though they are vaccinated, they would rather sit outside.”

Anticipating a demand for pods over the summer initially, O’Brien (31) set up Silvertree Designs in May with business partner Aaron Coughlin.

The pair run a couple of pubs in Ballyshannon and had built their own sheltered outdoor seating areas. Such was the interest in them, they decided to start up a side business.

“People heard about us through word of mouth at the start, but we’ve built a website now and the orders just keep coming in,” says O’Brien. “I was surprised with the demand. It was hard at the start but we’ve gotten into a routine now.”

Silvertree has sold about 80 pods so far. A standard one, with three sides enclosed, a peaked roof and seating for six people around a table starts at €999. Adding a Perspex window costs a further €100, and having the pod painted is a further €299.

O’Brien has two carpenters working for him full time and this week had fresh orders at the tail end of the summer season from restaurants in Buncrana and Muff, on either side of the Inishowen peninsula.

“Even with indoors reopening, businesses are still buying pods,” he says. “So they are anticipating people will continue to want to drink and dine outdoors. There is definitely a feeling that there is a shift in people’s habits.”

Shifting to pods

About 100km north of Ballyshannon, and across the Border in Derry, Brian McGinley has turned his 30 years of experience in the construction industry to pandemic pods.

When trade – mostly house extensions and private builds – shuddered to a stop during the pandemic lockdowns, McGinley was itching for a way to get back to work.

Having built a garden room for his daughter about 15 years ago, he knew the ropes and then “had a light bulb moment”, deciding that many more would be interested in similar structures as restrictions eased.

“I just thought, ‘there is nothing else happening’,” he says. “There was a yard free on the Bay Road near where I live and I approached the fella who owned it, told him my idea and he said, ‘go ahead’. I thought, ‘I have nothing to lose, I’ll give it a go’.”

Starting last September, McGinley drafted in a few friends from his trade and they began making garden rooms. Initially demand came from professionals “with children hanging around their necks” and needing space to work.

But then a local publican phoned him looking for a few and his enterprise has shifted towards the hospitality sector.

McGinley has also started importing “industrial standard” pods from Germany.

“I haven’t even marketed this yet, it has all been word of mouth custom,” he says. “I’m planning to start marketing them now, I do think it’s a sustainable enterprise. I’m focusing on this now.”

In Kilkenny city, Edgars Tils was looking for a way to boost his income when the pandemic put the brakes on his car repair business.

“People getting their cars serviced every few months were sitting at home and getting it serviced once a year,” he says.

‘Every euro helps’

Tils had spotted outdoor dining pods before in his native Latvia and thought they could work well in Ireland.

Since May, he has been shipping in budget flat-pack pods from Latvia – made with galvanised metal frames and a polycarbonate cover – to supply mainly pubs and cafes in Kilkenny, although orders have gone as far as Co Kerry, at €500 a unit.

“They look nice, and these are cheap compared to some pods costing several thousand euro, and they’re ready to go in a couple of hours,” says Tils. “It is helping me make something extra. I have a family and still have to pay all my bills, so every euro helps.”

Adrian Cummins, chief executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, admits the “rush indoors isn’t as great as what we thought it would be”.

Two factors are at play, he suggests. First, the weather has not been atrocious so far since the reopening but once it gets colder and wetter more people will move indoors. Second, he is detecting a shift in Irish people’s approach to outdoors dining.

“I was in Cork city centre during the week and they have done a fantastic job there with outdoor dining. There really is an appetite for it,” he says.

Cummins also notes that not everyone is fully vaccinated against Covid-19 yet and suspects there is a “solidarity” among diners, who will sit outside if one member of the party has not been inoculated against the disease.

“I think the pods will stay and people will utilise them more, but it will probably be more seasonal. But once you get heat into them, they could be used right into the winter,” he says.

“We are moving towards a more continental style of dining. We’ve embraced the public health advice to eat outdoors.”

A €17 million grant scheme offering hospitality businesses up to €4,000 each to buy pods, outdoor tables and heaters was announced by Fáilte Ireland at the end of March. Despite anecdotal evidence of a flourishing outdoor hospitality scene, newly released figures show what Cummins calls a “disappointing” uptake of the financial supports, which are administered by local authorities.

At the end of July, there had been just 306 applicants countrywide, who shared a total of just €1,050,375. Businesses in Dublin accounted for about a third of the applications.

Scepticism among publicans

Asked why the figures appear low, Cummins replies he does not know. “I am very surprised with that. It needs to be looked at.”

A Fáilte Ireland spokeswoman said the figures do not include applications still being processed and that the scheme remains open until the end of September.

Brian Foley, of the Vintners Federation of Ireland, suggests there is a scepticism among publicans about whether outdoor hospitality is here to stay.

“Whether that new-found passion survives contact with a typical Irish winter is up for debate but, for now, outdoor hospitality is playing a vital role in getting pubs back on their feet,” he says.

While the pods are “hugely popular” and are making publicans money “even in the most inclement weather”, Foley says any notion they are sounding the death knell of the famed indoor Irish pub experience “may be exaggerated”.

“In the depths of winter a pint while sitting beside an open fire in a cosy pub will be a combination hard to beat,” he insists.